lunar craters Archives

May 10, 2024May 10, 2024 by Evan Gough

Lighting Up the Moon’s Permanently Shadowed Craters

This illustration shows a solar reflector on a crater rim could deliver solar energy where it's needed in the bottom of permanently shadowed polar craters on the Moon. Image Credit: Texas A&M Engineering

The Moon’s polar regions are home to permanently shadowed craters. In those craters is ancient ice, and establishing a presence on the Moon means those water ice deposits are a valuable resource. Astronauts will likely use solar energy to work in these craters and harvest water, but the Sun never shines there.

What’s the solution? According to one team of researchers, a solar collector perched on the crater’s rim.

March 8, 2023March 8, 2023 by Andy Tomaswick

China’s Rover Used Radar to Look Deep Beneath the Surface of Mars. What Did it Find?

The ongoing effort to under Martian geology and the planet’s history continues. A recent paper from a scientific team in China looks at the data collected by Zhurong, a rover that has been in place on the Red Planet since 2021. While it didn’t find any evidence of water in the basin it was looking in, it did find some interesting buried features and provided more data to our mounting understanding of one of our nearest neighbors.

May 19, 2020May 19, 2020 by Evan Gough

This Laser Powered Rover Could Stay in the Shadows on the Moon and Continue to Explore

The ESA's Rover Autonomy Testbed being tested at Tenerife. Image Credit: Fernando Gandía/GMV

The craters on the Moon’s poles are in permanent shadow. But they’re also intriguing locations, due to deposits of water ice and other materials. The ESA is developing the idea for a rover that can explore these areas with power provided by lasers.